


in the wake of what's been

by nightwideopen



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Break Up, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-26 22:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17755058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwideopen/pseuds/nightwideopen
Summary: They worked it out. But then Loki happened. And then everything else happened.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> based on the prompt: _well this is really awkward considering the last time we saw each other, i was screaming at you to never talk to me again, but like, my dog recognized you all the way across the park and literally dragged me over here because she misses you so hi” AU_
> 
> full list of prompts [here](http://thedreamvevowritingprompts.tumblr.com/post/132518177311)
> 
> In an MCU divergent universe where SHIELD told Steve about Bucky shortly after he came out of the ice, he found Bucky fairly quickly. Clint and Bucky were together during the Battle of New York. It’s roughly 2013 and SHIELD is still in tact, HYDRA agents therefore still crawling all over the place like roaches. But, for all intents and purposes of this story, that’s irrelevant. 
> 
> Lucky was Clint’s dog before the battle and has since gone through certifications and training enough to make him a halfway decent service dog/emotional support animal. 
> 
> He’s a good boy.

“What? No, Lucky, _no_.”

See, the thing is that even though Clint is over six feet tall and the strongest Avenger by a long shot, he’s no match for a one-eyed golden retriever that’s got his sights set on something. Lucky nearly yanks Clint’s arm out of its socket and before he knows it, they’re halfway across the Central Park lawn.

“Lucky, _why_ ,” he whines. They finally slow to a stop and Clint sees exactly why.

His stupid, air-headed dog has tackled his ex-boyfriend into the grass right in the middle of Central Park. And if Clint didn’t already want to light himself on fire due to the million things he has to do today, he sure does now. Bucky doesn’t even look stunned, or put off. He’s smiling and giddy and just genuinely happy to pet a dog that he hasn’t seen in nearly eight months. Or maybe he’s just happy to pet a dog, but Lucky is beside himself with their reunion. His whole body is wiggling with the force of it, rolling over right away to give Bucky access to his belly, which Bucky takes full advantage of. Clint kind of wants to drop the leash and run away, but he knows that Lucky would never forgive him. His dog’s got abandonment issues to rival his own.

“Hey, Lucky boy,” Bucky is saying. He’s doing his soft voice that he’d only ever used on Lucky or Clint. “I missed you too, yes I did. Hi, hi, hello.”

“Um.”

Clint doesn’t say it loud enough to actually be _at_ Bucky, because he’s still trying to decide whether he wants to make his presence known or not. But apparently supersoldier hearing has decided for him, and Bucky’s eyes are suddenly on him.

“Sorry about him,” he says. “You know how he gets.”

Bucky stands up slowly, still smiling. “I know. It’s okay. It’s good to see him.”

There’s a terrible moment of silence where Bucky is just staring at him and Clint wants nothing more than to bolt. But then he tilts his head in that way that he _knows_ Clint finds adorable and his eyes go all soft and he’s talking to Clint and he can’t run away now.

“How are you?”

Clint can’t tell if he genuinely wants to know or if it’s some passive aggressive ex-boyfriend tactic to make him feel even worse about what happened the last time they saw each other.

“I’m… Fine? I’m okay. Lucky misses you. Hates me for letting you leave but, y’know. I live to disappoint.”

God, does he ever shut up? Bucky’s frowning now. And it’s getting real exhausting trying to pretend that nothing ever happened between them. The tips of his fingers are itching with the absurdity of it. He can’t stop fidgeting, but Bucky knows his ticks and tells better than anyone – except Natasha, obviously – and he doesn’t want to give himself away so soon.

“Look,” Clint says before Bucky can answer. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for yelling and for saying shit I didn’t mean and I’m sorry for being an asshole and taking out my anger on you. I’m sorry for everything. This is super fucking weird for me right now and I’m sorry we haven’t talked in so long but I literally can’t handle seeing you knowing what I did because I know you’ll never forgive me. I was out of line and you probably don’t want to see me anyway. Ever. So I’m sorry.”

Lucky licks at his hand, and that’s how he knows his voice is probably more shaky than it seems from his end.

“Hey.”

Clint doesn’t realize that he’s staring at his scuffed up shoes until Bucky speaks in that gentle tone that’s reserved for three in the morning. Or a really bad day. Their eyes meet, and it’s probably the worst thing that’s happened all day because Clint misses him _so much_ and he has no one to blame but himself. Bucky is looking at him in the same way he did when Clint shook awake from nightmares, when he’d curl up on the couch for hours and forget to eat. It’s the same look he had when he came back from walking Lucky and found Clint crying because he just _couldn’t do it anymore._ He couldn’t watch Bucky, the picture of recovery, tip toeing around him like Clint was a bomb ready to go off at any moment.

He was.

And he did.

But that’s not the point.

“I forgave you a long time ago,” Bucky says. “And I never blamed you for any of it. You needed space, and time, and you seem better now, for what’s it worth. From what I can see. And I hope you are, because that’s all I ever wanted for you. I just wanted you to be okay.”

Nope. No, Clint can’t do this today. He has therapy in an hour and lunch with Natasha and Tony wants him to test out the fingerprint activations on a new bow and he _can’t_. He turns on his heel, tugging meaningfully on Lucky’s leash – enough that Lucky doesn’t struggle – and starts to walk away.

“Clint!”

He ignores it. He ignores the desperate edge to Bucky’s voice that he hasn’t heard in eight months and keeps walking. But Bucky is running ahead of him, planting himself in Clint’s path.

“Please,” he’s saying. “Please just talk to me?”

Clint refuses to let it get to him. He treated Bucky like shit, didn’t do half the things that he should’ve to show Bucky how much he loved – _loves_ , he thinks horribly – him. He let two years go by in a flurry of depression and betrayal and being an all around asshole to the one person that could stand to be around him towards the end of something that exploded in his face anyway. Not one text, not one phone call from either end. They haven’t so much as managed to accidentally be in the same room in _eight months_. And it’s better that way. But Bucky stands his ground, enough that Clint doesn’t even want to shove past him. Bucky would let him go, wouldn’t grab him and force him to stay. He just wants Clint to say something, and maybe he owes him that much. After everything.

_“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Bucky asks quietly._

_Clint grins down at him, presses an obnoxious kiss to his nose and continues to wiggle annoyingly on top of him. It’s more of a baring of his teeth and a scrunch of his nose than a smile, but it seems fitting that his whole face is just as twisted up as his insides are._

_“Why not?” Clint finds himself replying. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”_

_He knows he’s opening himself up to a world of disappointment, uttering those words that he’s heard a million times in movies right before everything goes wrong. Real life is supposed to be different though, isn’t it? It’ll work because they’ll make it work. Because they both want this. Because Bucky made this choice on his own and that’s the most important factor in this equation._

_Bucky wipes the wetness from his nose. “I dunno. We could fall in love.”_

_“Eh.” Clint shrugs. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”_

_He rushes to cover Bucky’s mouth with his own to spare himself the response._

_Neither of them know how they ended up here, but Bucky doesn’t know that this moment is the culmination of everything Clint has been letting himself want for months. Here in Clint’s bed, nothing but warmth and smiles between them. Ever since Steve dragged Bucky into the tower like a stray cat in from the rain, expression to match, and set him loose like some kind of Avenger magnet whilst he recovered from the damage HYDRA did. Clint wanted to be the one to make him smile, tell him that he’s safe now. No one will ever hurt him again if Clint can help it. He wanted exactly this, and now he’s got it, and he’s terrified of letting it slip through his fingers. Just like everything else._

_And it turns out fine._

_And then Loki happens._

_And then everything else happens._

“I said I’m sorry,” Clint says through clenched teeth, “What more do you want?”

“No. No, no, no.” Then Bucky is in his space, and every inch of Clint is longing to reach out and touch him. He can smell him from here. And he just smells like Bucky, after his cologne has all but worn off and he’s halfway through his day. “You don’t have to _be_ sorry, Clint. I don’t blame you. I never did. You were _hurting_ and I couldn’t help you and that killed me and _I’m_ sorry. Just… please don’t go yet. Please? I miss you.”

Aw, fuck.

Clint looks back down at the ground, wringing the leather of Lucky’s leash in his nervous hands.

“I miss you, too.”

It’s so stupid and they both know it because Bucky actually laughs. A huff of air that could’ve been mistaken for exasperation if Clint didn’t know him so well, didn’t know the ins and outs of every sound that Bucky makes.

“Then what are we doing?” he asks.

Clint doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until his vision starts to get spotty, then he gulps in a lungful of air. Lucky whines with concern, tugging at his sleeve until he hits the ground and Lucky can lick his neck and keep him present. He can vaguely hear Bucky’s voice through the fog in his head, through trying to focus on not panicking worse than he already is. He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to see Bucky so suddenly. He wanted it to be on his own terms, when he was ready to talk about this. He wasn’t expecting it today and goddamnit, he’s supposed to be getting _better_. Lucky growls, and he sees Bucky take a step back, hand still outstretched.

“Are you okay?”

Clint nods. “Yeah.”

His voice is all reedy and more air than words but it gets the point across.

“Me and my. My therapist. Thought it’d be best to get him trained so he knows what to do when I– when it’s… you know.” He pats Lucky’s head. “It’s okay boy, you did good. Let Bucky by, come on.”

Bucky takes the invitation for what it is, putting a hand on Clint’s shoulder. He tries not to, but he flinches just the tiniest bit. Bucky makes to move back but Clint catches him with his own hand, trying to find comfort in the touch the way he used to. It’s so far away and foreign right now but it’s still Bucky.

It’s still them. He still loves him.

As if he ever stopped.

Bucky sits himself in the grass and gathers them both up in his arms, letting Lucky’s tongue assault his face. All Clint can do is let himself fall into it, try to let the adrenaline wear off and get his lungs to actually take in a significant amount of air. Bucky’s scent calms him down in spite of everything.

“That’s good,” Bucky mumbles belatedly. “I’m glad you can have that. I’m proud of you.”

Bucky must be able to tell the moment that Clint gets his breathing under control because he pulls away, face full of concern, and opens his mouth to speak.

“I’m fine,” Clint says quickly. “Just wanna go home.”

“That’s what I was gonna ask,” Bucky replies with a soft smile. “Come on, the subway’s not far. Or we could get a–”

“I–”

Clint catches himself before he snaps at Bucky, squeezes his eyes shut as he stands. He refuses to let his anger with himself get the better of him, he doesn’t want to take it out on Bucky. He’s only trying to help.

“I know,” he says quietly. “Let’s get a car. I’d rather take longer than get on the train right now.”

Bucky nods, and pulls out his phone. By the time they make it to the edge of the park, a black SUV is waiting for them. They ride in silence, Lucky’s breathing accompanying the soft piano music filtering through the speakers. Clint wants to break it, wants to hear anything besides his mind racing with what might be going on in Bucky’s head. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t have even gone into the park. It’s been so long since they sat this close and it feels as scary as it does familiar because nothing is the same but it’s still _them_. Clint can’t reach between them and take Bucky’s hand, or rest his head on Bucky’s shoulder. He can only sit here and be hyper aware of every bump in the road that makes their knees collide and hope that he doesn’t blurt something out just to stave off the panic from hearing only his heartbeat in his ears.

The car stops and they wordlessly exit, Lucky barking gently at the doorman. Clint is halfway into the elevator when he stops and turns. Bucky is standing just inside the front door, all the way across the lobby. Even with his supersoldier hearing, he’s too far away to hear Clint.

So he signs, _Thank you,_ and hurries into the elevator before Bucky can answer.

“My floor, please F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“Of course, Mr. Barton. Welcome back. A car will be waiting to take you to your appointment in ten minutes.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He glares down at Lucky. “I can’t believe you.”

Lucky just gives him a big dopey dog grin.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha’s waiting for him when he gets out of therapy. It’s the same sleek, black SUV that dropped him off earlier, only she’s in the driver’s seat.

He must look as exhausted as he feels because she doesn’t say a word when he tucks his arms around himself and puts his feet up on the dashboard. Or it might be because he has his hood pulled over his head and he’s trying to disappear into the leather of the passenger seat. Either way, he’s spent the better part of the past forty-five minutes trying not to cry and he thinks he might have to cancel on Tony, which Tony hates.

They stop outside the elevator in the lobby and it feels like déjà vu.

“You want to be alone?” Natasha asks gently.

He does, but he’s come to learn that what he wants isn’t always what’s best. Clint shakes his head, then steps into the elevator and tucks himself into a corner, arms still wrapped around himself. He feels like he’s going to shake right out of his skin.

“Let’s get you to bed. F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Nearly there. Though, I should warn you that Mr. Barnes is waiting there.”

“No,” Clint says quickly. No. “Take us to Nat’s floor.”

The elevator stops short, and for the first time since Clint moved in, he can feel it moving.

_“How do you think they get it to run so smooth?”_

_Clint’s half asleep, half in Bucky’s arms and barely supporting his own weight._

_“Dunno. Elves. Elevator elves. Ele-velves.”_

_Bucky giggles into his ear, fingers lightly brushing his hair out of his eyes. Are his eyes open? They might be. Oh, he can see Bucky grinning at him. He’s still awake somehow._

_Then Clint is being lifted off his feet and he has enough presence of mind to get his arms and legs to lock. It’s not that he has to, because Bucky is more than strong enough to hold Clint up with one arm, let alone both. So Clint just presses his nose to Bucky’s neck, lets the short baby hairs tickle his face. He smells like the bar and faintly of cigarettes but he’s so so warm and solid and Clint never wants to let him go._

_The elevator just keeps on dinging as they go up and up and up._

_“I love you, you know.”_

_Bucky’s voice has a certain cadence that just wakes Clint up from the inside out._

_“More than anything,” he mumbles back._

_“That’s right,” Bucky says._

_Clint can’t help the smile that spreads across his sleepy face. He’d stay here forever if he could; half asleep and a little drunk, the most perfect man in the world–_

_“Love you too.”_

“Clint…”

“No.” The doors slide open and he marches meaningfully into Natasha’s apartment. “I’m not ready. I wasn’t ready to see him today. And now he’s- he’s. It’s like he’s _ambushing_ me. In my own apartment? I can’t do it. I just wanted to go to bed. It’s been a long fucking day and I’m not _ready._ F.R.I.D.A.Y. can you tell Tony I have to reschedule and that I’m really sorry?”

“Will do.”

Natasha slowly follows him to the sofa in her bedroom, the one that’s covered in coffee stains and purple pillows. It’s more his than hers at this point. She keeps a careful distance when she finally sits, her position relaxed but her expression weary. Natasha’s no stranger to his outburst and hysterics, but she falls silent. He’s really going to get it.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupts before Natasha can speak.

“Mr. Barnes wanted me to inform you that he’s no longer on your floor. He’s apologized for the intrusion.”

“Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y., he’ll be ready in a bit,” Natasha says.

“I will?”

She ignores him, continuing as if they hadn’t been Interrupted at all.

“You and I both know that that’s just an excuse.” She’s chosen her words carefully, deliberately. “The only way to know if you’re ready is to face your challenge head on and _deal with it_.”

Her words tug at him in a terrible way. But she’s not saying it to be mean, or insensitive. She’s saying it because she knows him, knows him _well_ , and knows that he needs a little tough love sometimes to realize that he’s being an idiot. He’s feeling sorry for himself, something that he never used to do. It’s been almost two years since Loki played around in his head and he’s still getting all mixed up. Clint knows who he is most of the time, knows that he doesn’t need a pity card, knows that he can’t just sit around and expect things to just fix themselves. He’s gotten this far, fixing himself with all the effort that he can muster. This is one more thing. It’s on his list, anyway, and he got an unexpected jumpstart on it today at the park. The least he can do is use that to his advantage.

He nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Nat. Can I just… I need a few minutes.”

“Come here.” Natasha pats her thigh and waits for him to settle into his side, curled up with his head pillowed in her lap. She runs her fingers through his hair just the way he likes. “You’re gonna be okay,” she says softly. “Look how far you’ve come already.”

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep but when he wakes up, Natasha’s still there. It couldn’t have been that long then. He feels better, though, even though his eyes are still slightly sticky from crying. He stumbles off of the couch in a daze.

“Okay F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” he gets out before he can lose his sleepy bravado, “You can send him up.”

“Right away, Hawkeye.”

Oh man, Jarvis would _never._

“Hey.” Natasha grabs his wrist before he can get past and holds on just long enough to say, “It’ll be fine. I love you.”

But she doesn’t, not really. How could she? He’s fucked up so many– No. No, Clint isn’t allowed to have those kinds of thoughts anymore. He’s not going to throw away her declaration that he _knows_ she means just because he’s feeling sorry for himself, just because he’s scared She said it, and she meant it. She wouldn’t lie to him.

“Love you, too, Nat. See you later?”

“Bring the popcorn.”

That makes Clint smile despite himself.

 

Bucky once told Clint that he has extremely heavy footsteps for a spy. The comment prompted a stealth war that resulted in Clint getting a black eye on no less than three occasions. He wore the bruises with pride, revelling in the fact that he successfully snuck up on the Winter Soldier. But that also means that Clint doesn’t wear shoes around the tower anymore, and walks toe-heel the way Natasha showed him before she declared him impossible to teach ballet to.

Apparently his technique is _grotesquely mediocre_.

So he makes sure to slam the door to his bedroom before sitting on the floor next to his bed. Lucky immediately bounds over and plants himself on Clint’s folded legs.

Sure enough, there’s a knock on his door that makes his heart jump into his throat. He hadn’t anticipated how much more terrifying this would be with prior knowledge. It’s worse than the sudden startle of seeing Bucky’s face after so long.

“Come in.”

And it’s so devastating to watch the sheepish way Bucky slinks over the threshold as if he’s not sure that he’s welcome.

“Hey.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything about Clint sitting on the floor, and sits cross-legged right next to him so that their knees touch. It hits Clint in an awfully weird way that it didn’t before that Bucky already knows why he’s sitting on the floor.

“So this is weird,” Clint says flatly. He can feel Bucky watching him pet Lucky.

“Is it? I’m sorry, I don’t want it to be. If you don’t want to see me, I understand. And I’m not saying that to make you feel bad, I really do understand. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine. It’s been a long time. We didn’t really get any closure I guess, either.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s voice sounds so… not-Bucky. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. I’m sorry for being in here before, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“God.” Why does he have to be so fucking _nice?_ “Can you just… cut it out? Can you just be you? Can we just be us without the whole… the fake–” He waves his hands abstractly. “This is why I got upset. The day you left. You were walking on eggshells around me trying not to set me off. And you were being so perfectly reasonable and functional and watching me be a human pile of _garbage_ –”

Lucky whines loudly.

“Hey hey hey.” Bucky grabs his hands from where he’s holding onto Lucky’s fur probably too tight. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m sorry. It’s just me.” And it is. For the first time all day he sounds like Bucky. He sounds _right._ “You’re not– God, Clint, why didn’t you just–” He cuts himself off. “No. It’s in the past, it’s not your fault. You’re recovering now, that’s all that matters, okay? I’m sorry I did that. I didn’t know how to help and I didn’t want to hurt you more.”

“You were just doing so well.” Clint’s voice is barely a whisper. “I was so proud of you. But it just… he– It didn’t feel like I could ever get there. You had it so much worse and you– He broke me in _three days_.”

He looks at Bucky then, sees the Bucky he fell in love with all those years ago when they would sit on the roof and trade their best kill shots, pretending they weren’t feeling guilty as all hell about most of them. It was morbid and it was a little fucked up but it was _theirs._ What he had with Bucky wasn’t something he had with anyone else – because Natasha is something else _entirely –_ and maybe in another life what Loki did to him would’ve made them closer rather than tear them apart.

“You’re not broken,” Bucky says firmly. “You were hurt and you’re healing and that’s all anyone can ask of you.”

Clint knows this on a fundamental level, but deep in his bones the way he gave up still feels like a colossal failure.

“I miss you,” he says instead. “Lucky misses you.”

Bucky smiles, small and sympathetic. “I miss you guys, too.”

Clint remember Bucky’s words from earlier.

“Then what are we doing?”

“Well…” Bucky rearranges their hands so that he’s got one of Clint’s in his metal one, their fingers intertwined the right way. “I was hoping that maybe, if you really wanted, we could be us again.” Against all odds, he blushes. “But only if you wanted.”

He has no idea how much Clint wants that. Lucky's tail starts thumping against the floor. Clint nods stupidly.

“Of course I want that. I’ve been fucking starving without you here to cook me breakfast.”

Bucky laughs loud and suddenly, like he can’t help it. “What did you do _before_ I became your personal chef?”

“I didn’t know what I was missing. Now I do.”

Bucky puts a hand on the back of Clint’s neck, not pushing or pulling, just holding him close, their faces gravitating together without much effort from either of them. Everything in Clint is screaming to not pull away, to never leave, to never let Bucky go ever again. He misses everything so suddenly all at once. He misses the warmth of Bucky next to him in bed, the rush of him being there in the morning. It took months of unlearning the almost primal desire of wanting to be as close to him as possible. So it’s only fair that he nearly kicks Lucky trying to scramble into Bucky’s arms, pushing his face into Bucky’s neck and pressing kisses everywhere he can reach. Clint hugs him tight, shoulders bowing to accommodate his height over Bucky, can’t help the near sigh of relief that comes pouring out of him.

“I love you so much you have no idea.”

But Bucky’s arms are just as tight around his waist. “I think I have some idea.”

And Clint _believes_ him.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](https://nightwideopen.tumblr.com/post/182767551474/in-the-wake-of-whats-been-by-nightwideopen-they)


End file.
